In dispute, Amazon misquotes Orwell, forms "Readers United"

Published: Monday, August 11, 2014 at 1:59 p.m.

Last Modified: Monday, August 11, 2014 at 1:59 p.m.

Amazon must be spooked by the idea of writers massing against it, because over the weekend it launched its own counterrevolutionary force.

The retailer created a group called Readers United to pressure Hachette, the nation's fourth-biggest book publisher. It is a direct response to Authors United, created by the novelist Douglas Preston to pressure Amazon to stop withholding books from sale as it negotiates with publishers over e-book prices.

The confrontation is, some people in publishing argue, a struggle over the future of reading in our time - or at least the future of Amazon and the big New York publishers, starting with Hachette.

Authors United ran an advertisement in The New York Times on Sunday, supplying readers with the email address of Amazon's chief executive, Jeff Bezos. Amazon's plan for action mimicked Preston's. In a web posting and a letter sent out to its Kindle authors, Amazon asked people to write to Hachette's chief executive, Michael Pietsch, and provided an email address.

Just to make sure the letter writers stayed on message, Amazon offered a list of talking points. The first one, alluding to the 2012 Justice Department antitrust suit against Hachette, was, "We have noted your illegal collusion," always an icebreaker in these circumstances.

Amazon then repeated its argument that e-books should be less expensive, and charged those who think otherwise with trying to thwart history. And it provided a list of recommended reading, most of which was written by people published by Amazon.

Hachette declined to say how many emails Pietsch was receiving, but said he would be replying to all of them with a letter of his own. The letter, which was released to the news media, said more than 80 percent of the publisher's e-books were $9.99 or less.

"This dispute started because Amazon is seeking a lot more profit and even more market share, at the expense of authors, bricks and mortar bookstores, and ourselves," Pietsch wrote.

Amazon declined to say how many emails Bezos was receiving. Writers who wrote him said they received no immediate reply.

The freshest part of Amazon's call to arms was the history lesson. It recounted how the book industry hated mass-market paperbacks when they were introduced in the 1930s, and said they would ruin the business when they really rejuvenated it.

Unfortunately, to clinch its argument, it cited the wrong authority: "The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if 'publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.' Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion." This perceived slur on the memory of one of the 20th century's most revered truth-tellers might prove to be one of Amazon's biggest public relations blunders since it deleted copies of "1984" from readers' Kindles in 2009.

A moment's Web searching would have revealed to the Amazon Books Team, which is credited as the source of the Hachette post, that it was wildly misrepresenting this "famous author." When Orwell wrote that line, he was celebrating paperbacks published by Penguin, not urging suppression or collusion.

Here is what the writer actually said in The New English Weekly on March 5, 1936: "The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if the other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them." Orwell then went on to undermine Amazon's argument for cheap e-books. "It is, of course, a great mistake to imagine that cheap books are good for the book trade," he wrote, saying that the opposite was true.

"The cheaper books become," he wrote, "the less money is spent on books." Instead of buying two expensive books, he said, the consumer will buy three cheap books and then use the rest of the money to go to the movies. "This is an advantage from the reader's point of view and doesn't hurt trade as a whole, but for the publisher, the compositor, the author and the bookseller, it is a disaster," Orwell wrote.

Amazon's post gave Orwell a big weekend on the Internet. "Altering Orwell's words to fit your agenda seems rather ... Orwellian," Josh Centers, a tech writer, said in a Twitter message. "Only a fool or a businessman would twist that quote so completely," wrote John Biggs in TechCrunch.

Glenn Fleishman, a technology journalist, addressed Amazon directly via Twitter: "He was using irony. It's a literary device. You sell books. What is wrong with you."

In a related development, it became widely known over the weekend that Amazon was in a dispute with yet another supplier, this time Disney. Amazon was doing the same thing with the movie studio that it did with Hachette: preventing customers from preordering physical copies of yet-to-be-released content.

Preorders are a way for an entertainment company to gauge demand. Consumers have increasingly been trained to want something the moment it becomes available. When customers lose the ability to order ahead, the companies worry, they might never bother to buy at all.

In several cases, as with the latest Muppets movie, the Amazon page offered to email a potential customer when the movie was released. But in at least one case, there seemed to be no product page at all for a physical copy of a movie. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is available for preorder as an Amazon Instant Video, but there are no pages for a Blu-ray disc or a DVD. It was unclear if the pages were taken down, or never posted.

Amazon's selective sales practices bring Orwell to mind again.

In "1984," the Records Department is charged with rewriting the past to fit whomever Oceania is currently fighting. There are "armies of reference clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall." In its skirmish with the publishers, Amazon appears to be wielding its technology in bold ways that Orwell would surely recognize.

An Amazon spokesman did not respond to questions about Orwell or "Captain America." Disney did not return calls for comment.

<p>Amazon must be spooked by the idea of writers massing against it, because over the weekend it launched its own counterrevolutionary force.</p><p>The retailer created a group called Readers United to pressure Hachette, the nation's fourth-biggest book publisher. It is a direct response to Authors United, created by the novelist Douglas Preston to pressure Amazon to stop withholding books from sale as it negotiates with publishers over e-book prices.</p><p>The confrontation is, some people in publishing argue, a struggle over the future of reading in our time - or at least the future of Amazon and the big New York publishers, starting with Hachette.</p><p>Authors United ran an advertisement in The New York Times on Sunday, supplying readers with the email address of Amazon's chief executive, Jeff Bezos. Amazon's plan for action mimicked Preston's. In a web posting and a letter sent out to its Kindle authors, Amazon asked people to write to Hachette's chief executive, Michael Pietsch, and provided an email address.</p><p>Just to make sure the letter writers stayed on message, Amazon offered a list of talking points. The first one, alluding to the 2012 Justice Department antitrust suit against Hachette, was, "We have noted your illegal collusion," always an icebreaker in these circumstances.</p><p>Amazon then repeated its argument that e-books should be less expensive, and charged those who think otherwise with trying to thwart history. And it provided a list of recommended reading, most of which was written by people published by Amazon.</p><p>Hachette declined to say how many emails Pietsch was receiving, but said he would be replying to all of them with a letter of his own. The letter, which was released to the news media, said more than 80 percent of the publisher's e-books were $9.99 or less.</p><p>"This dispute started because Amazon is seeking a lot more profit and even more market share, at the expense of authors, bricks and mortar bookstores, and ourselves," Pietsch wrote.</p><p>Amazon declined to say how many emails Bezos was receiving. Writers who wrote him said they received no immediate reply.</p><p>The freshest part of Amazon's call to arms was the history lesson. It recounted how the book industry hated mass-market paperbacks when they were introduced in the 1930s, and said they would ruin the business when they really rejuvenated it.</p><p>Unfortunately, to clinch its argument, it cited the wrong authority: "The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if 'publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.' Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion." This perceived slur on the memory of one of the 20th century's most revered truth-tellers might prove to be one of Amazon's biggest public relations blunders since it deleted copies of "1984" from readers' Kindles in 2009.</p><p>A moment's Web searching would have revealed to the Amazon Books Team, which is credited as the source of the Hachette post, that it was wildly misrepresenting this "famous author." When Orwell wrote that line, he was celebrating paperbacks published by Penguin, not urging suppression or collusion.</p><p>Here is what the writer actually said in The New English Weekly on March 5, 1936: "The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if the other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them." Orwell then went on to undermine Amazon's argument for cheap e-books. "It is, of course, a great mistake to imagine that cheap books are good for the book trade," he wrote, saying that the opposite was true.</p><p>"The cheaper books become," he wrote, "the less money is spent on books." Instead of buying two expensive books, he said, the consumer will buy three cheap books and then use the rest of the money to go to the movies. "This is an advantage from the reader's point of view and doesn't hurt trade as a whole, but for the publisher, the compositor, the author and the bookseller, it is a disaster," Orwell wrote.</p><p>Amazon's post gave Orwell a big weekend on the Internet. "Altering Orwell's words to fit your agenda seems rather ... Orwellian," Josh Centers, a tech writer, said in a Twitter message. "Only a fool or a businessman would twist that quote so completely," wrote John Biggs in TechCrunch.</p><p>Glenn Fleishman, a technology journalist, addressed Amazon directly via Twitter: "He was using irony. It's a literary device. You sell books. What is wrong with you." </p><p>In a related development, it became widely known over the weekend that Amazon was in a dispute with yet another supplier, this time Disney. Amazon was doing the same thing with the movie studio that it did with Hachette: preventing customers from preordering physical copies of yet-to-be-released content.</p><p>Preorders are a way for an entertainment company to gauge demand. Consumers have increasingly been trained to want something the moment it becomes available. When customers lose the ability to order ahead, the companies worry, they might never bother to buy at all.</p><p>In several cases, as with the latest Muppets movie, the Amazon page offered to email a potential customer when the movie was released. But in at least one case, there seemed to be no product page at all for a physical copy of a movie. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is available for preorder as an Amazon Instant Video, but there are no pages for a Blu-ray disc or a DVD. It was unclear if the pages were taken down, or never posted.</p><p>Amazon's selective sales practices bring Orwell to mind again.</p><p>In "1984," the Records Department is charged with rewriting the past to fit whomever Oceania is currently fighting. There are "armies of reference clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall." In its skirmish with the publishers, Amazon appears to be wielding its technology in bold ways that Orwell would surely recognize.</p><p>An Amazon spokesman did not respond to questions about Orwell or "Captain America." Disney did not return calls for comment.</p>